如何免寫程式用 Apify UK Planning Applications Scraper 每週整理英國郵編附近的規劃申請

Builders, solar installers, architects, surveyors and local journalists all watch the same thing: new planning applications. Each council publishes them on its own portal, which means a different search form, layout and export button (when there is one) for every area you cover.

This guide shows how to get them into one spreadsheet, filtered by keyword and distance from a postcode, and how to set it up so that every week you only receive the applications you haven't seen yet. No code is needed.

Disclosure: I built the Apify Actor used here. The data comes from PlanIt, an open aggregator of UK council planning data. The Actor is a client for its public API.

What you get

One row per application:

• council, reference, address and postcode
• the description ("Installation of 12 roof-mounted solar panels…")
• application type and size (Small / Medium / Large)
• status (Undecided, Permitted, Conditions, Rejected, Withdrawn…)
• received, validated, decided and consultation-end dates
• latitude/longitude and a link to the original council page
• optional details: agent company, case officer, parish, and document and comment counts

Step 1: Open the Actor

Go to UK Planning Applications Scraper on Apify and click Try for free. You'll need a free Apify account.

Step 2: Say what and where

Example: house extensions within 5 km of central Leeds from the last 14 days.

{
  "search": "extension",
  "postcode": "LS1 4AP",
  "radiusKm": 5,
  "recentDays": 14,
  "maxItems": 200
}

Other useful filters:

• authorities: whole councils instead of a radius, e.g. ["Leeds", "Bradford"]
• appState: e.g. "Permitted" to see only approved schemes
• appSize: "Large" to focus on bigger developments
• startDate / endDate: a fixed window instead of "last N days"

Keyword ideas by trade: solar, loft conversion, HMO, heat pump, dropped kerb, change of use, demolition.

Step 3: Export

When the run finishes, open the Output tab and export as CSV, Excel or JSON, or connect it to Google Sheets with Apify's integration.

Step 4: Make it a weekly feed of only new applications

1. Tick incremental in the input. The Actor remembers what it already delivered for that same input and skips it next time, so you only pay for new rows.
2. Create a Schedule in Apify (e.g. every Monday 07:00).
3. Optionally, add a Google Sheets or email integration so the new rows land somewhere you'll see them.

You now have a Monday-morning list of fresh, local, relevant applications.

What does it cost?

Pay per result, with no subscription to the Actor: $0.012 per application (about $12 per 1,000) plus a $0.003 start fee per run. Detailed rows (includeDetails) are $0.02 each. A weekly local search usually returns a handful to a few dozen rows (that Leeds search returned 8 when I tested it on 31 Oct 2026), so it costs pennies a week. Apify's free plan includes monthly platform credit, enough to try it.

For developers

You can call the same thing from code or from an AI agent (the Actor works as an MCP tool):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/devteamdrew~uk-planning-applications/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"search":"extension","postcode":"LS1 4AP","radiusKm":5,"recentDays":14,"maxItems":50}'

Set "outputFormat": "llm" to get a compact Markdown block per application for RAG or summarising.

Notes and limits

• Coverage and freshness depend on PlanIt's council feeds. Most English, Welsh and Scottish councils are included, but a few update slowly.
• This is public planning data. If you use it for outreach, follow UK GDPR and PECR, and don't treat individual applicants' addresses as a marketing list.

Questions or a council that looks wrong? Leave a comment and I'll take a look.